Story highlights

Venezuelan president asks whether U.S. is behind Latin American leaders' cancer

Chavez says he is not accusing anyone, but finds it "very strange"

His comments came a day after word of Argentine president has thyroid cancer

A day after officials announced the cancer diagnosis of Argentina's president, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wondered Wednesday if the United States could be infecting the region's leaders with the illness.

Five current or former Latin American presidents have battled cancer in the past few years, including Chavez himself, who claims to have beaten an unspecified cancer.

Chavez prefaced his remarks at a military event in Caracas by saying, "I don't want to make any reckless accusations," but the Venezuelan president said he was concerned by something he finds "very, very, very strange."

"Would it be strange if (the United States) had developed a technology to induce cancer, and for no one to know it?" he asked.

Chavez cited the revelation this year that the United States, between 1946 and 1948, had carried out human experiments in Guatemala where subjects were exposed to sexually transmitted diseases.

That was 50 years ago, Chavez said, and he posited: Will it be discovered 50 years from now that the United States was infecting presidents with cancer?

"I don't know. I'm just putting the thought out there," Chavez said.

Victoria Nuland, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman, told reporters Thursday that Chavez's assertion was "horrific and reprehensible."

The Venezuelan president, who has a firm anti-U.S. stance, frequently hurls accusations at his political enemies, domestic and foreign. He has repeatedly said the United States is trying to destabilize his government.